[Python-Dev] Hi, and a question about filename completion via readline in Python 2.3 (original) (raw)

Michael Hudson mwh at python.net
Thu Sep 25 05:54:50 EDT 2003

Fernando Perez <fperez at colorado.edu> writes:

Besides thanking the python team for this fantastic language, I have a question concerning some changes apparently made to the C part of readline support for python 2.3. If I understood correctly this thread:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2002-February/085063.html as of python 2.3, readline will NOT default anymore to providing filename completions when nothing matches in the available namespaces. There is mention in that thread of making it a configurable parameter, but I failed to find any specifics on how to do that. While perhaps I'm missing something, so far (after getting this reported as an ipython bug from 2.3 users) I've failed to be able to recover filename completion under 2.3. While I'm sure you found good reasons for this change, under some environments it turns out to be really quite nasty. One of the strengths of ipython is its tight integration with the underlying system environment, and its users rely constantly on filename/directory completion for navigating their filesystem as they work. I personally (and many others) use ipython as my main python shell, and I fell it provides a superior working environment to anything else I've seen out there (especially if you need to combine python work with manipulating underlying files).

Bet pyrepl still canes it for multi-line work :-)

So ultimately my concerns are:

- is there currently a way to re-enable readline filename completion, as suggested in that thread?

Yes. Do it yourself, in your completer function. Is it really that hard? I would have thought os.path + glob would make it a five line or so excercise.

- if not, can such a change be made?

Well, I'm not going to . Feel free to submit a patch.

Cheers, mwh

-- You owe the Oracle a star-spangled dunce cap. -- Internet Oracularity Internet Oracularity #1299-08

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